Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington to enter governor's race

He predicts a Republican revival

March 02, 2009|By Rick Pearson, Tribune reporter

As state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington prepared to enter the 2010 Republican race for governor, on Sunday he discounted the effects of scandal on Democrats at the ballot box and instead said tax hikes and overspending would lead to a GOP rejuvenation.

Brady, 47, who finished third in the four-way Republican primary for governor in 2006 with 18 percent of the vote, becomes the first candidate to formally declare for governor in next year's contest with a fly-around of the state on Monday.

"Let's face it, the disasters of the first four years of the Blagojevich administration were just compounded in the next two years and we're going to need something to turn this state around, a leader who can stand above raw politics," said Brady, referring to former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was tossed out of the job after his arrest on federal corruption charges and his impeachment by lawmakers.

"I don't think there's any question that when you look at the history of Illinois politics, the political power within the governor's office switches much more easily because of corruption," Brady said in an interview Sunday on WGN-AM 720.

Yet as Republicans look to 2010 as an opportunity to rebound after the scandal-tarred years of former GOP Gov. George Ryan, Brady said Democratic spending and taxing policies "put us in a position of victory this time."

With a projected deficit of at least $9 billion facing the state by the end of June 2010, there is increasing talk of tax increases.

But Brady, a fiscal and social conservative in his 16th year in the legislature, maintained the state's true operating deficit was about half that amount and that it could be resolved by policies of tougher fiscal management, lower taxes and incentives to stimulate job growth.

Among Republicans, Doug Whitley, a former Illinois revenue director on leave from his job as head of the State Chamber of Commerce, also is mulling a bid for governor.